Superego Dynamics of Judgment and Rapprochement

Aggression in superego dynamics play a central role in long-term relationships, in addition to the many more obvious manifestations such as overt violence, verbal abuse, exploitation, degradation, devaluation, intimidation, sarcasm, teasing, and mockery. Here I am referring to sadomasochistic patterns of judging and being judged, of reproaching and being reproached.

Although today we also recognize a mature conscience fueled by attachment, love, and concern mediating reparation toward injured others and forgiveness toward the self, Freud focused mainly on the punitive superego fueled by aggression. As “heir to the Oedipus complex” it comes into being through the turning of

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hostility toward the oedipal rivals against the self, generating narcissistic states of persecutory guilt, shame, and the myriad patterns of self-damage he referred to as moral masochism.

Freud acquainted us with “the criminal from a sense of guilt” who, owing to a pre-existing but unconscious sense of guilt rooted in unresolved oedipal and pre-oedipal conflicts, commits a crime in order to be caught and punished. He also described those who fear success, or are wrecked by it, because they unconsciously equate it with an oedipal crime or triumph for which their superego demands suffering.

Though we are tempted to dismiss such guilt and punishment as entirely neurotic, Freud reminds us that it would be a mistake to do so. For while no actual crime may have been committed, a thought-crime, such as a death wish, may well have existed, which, while not deserving the same degree of punishment as the act with which it is falsely equated in the unconscious, nevertheless justifies a degree of guilt. We are judged by our superegos not merely for the evil we do but also for the evil we carry in our hearts.

Long-term relationships constitute a field in which both superego-driven, masochistic needs to suffer, as well as sadistic defences against this need, are played out. A common defence against the punitive superego is to seek to be its subject rather than its object, to identify with it and place someone else, the scapegoat, in the role of victim. Here one swings from masochism (being the sinner who gets punished) to sadism (being the righteous judge who punishes sinners).

Sometimes such sadomasochism takes an overt and concrete form in the dramatic costumes and practices of the sadomasochistic underground. But in somewhat more subtle forms it is commonly seen among couples in long-term relationships, who occupy these reciprocal roles, occasionally reversing them. While one might expect the sadistic role to be occupied by a man and the masochistic role by a woman (and this is often the case where overt violence is

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concerned), when the abuse is more refined we may find either gender submitting masochistically to painful psychological and emotional torment, humiliation, exploitation and domination by a punitive, superego-identified partner.

One of the most subtle forms of sadistic torment seen in relationships involves guilt induction. Almost a century and a half ago, in his Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche described the will to power of the weak. Unable to conquer the strong in direct struggle, the weak redefine strength itself as a sin: now filled with shame and guilt for being who they are, the strong fall on their own swords. In long-term relationships, we see the pattern whereby a masochistic partner with pre-existing neurotic guilt has this guilt intensified and manipulated in myriad ways by the sadistic partner who in this way gains a large measure of control.

Ms. A’s parents had adopted a daughter a year prior to her birth. Ms. A came to be treated as the genuine daughter, although she was consistently berated and demeaned by her disappointed, bitter, and alcoholic father who had been passed over for a senior position in the corporation he had worked for. Ms. A, despite showing great promise in her studies, never managed to develop a career or marriage and a family of her own, devoting herself to nursing her aging parents until their deaths, at which point she and her sister inherited substantial sums of money. Now free to develop a new life for herself, Ms. A has for several years been bogged down in a dysfunctional relationship with a narcissistic and exploitive man who uses her financially, is unfaithful to her, and who, like her father, continually demeans and degrades her. She dares not leave him, for when he is not around to mortify her, she resorts to physically mutilating herself in various ways. Ms. A is not consciously in touch with the murderous rage toward her father that she has turned against herself in the form of her sadistic superego, which she externalizes onto her partner, nor is she yet conscious of her need to suffer for her implicit triumph over her older adopted sister. Meanwhile, her neurotic guilt makes her an easy mark for her exploitive, if not mildly sociopathic, partner.

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Mr. B. is the middle of three children of a narcissistic mother whose husband left her when the children were small. Mr. B felt ignored and emotionally deprived by mother and sisters. As a result, he developed intense oral envy and greed, and a level of narcissism matching his mother’s. Having achieved great success in business, he now longs to have revenge on mother and sisters by invidiously rubbing their noses in all that he possesses and they lack, thus stimulating in them the painful envy he himself has suffered from. But his unconscious superego will not allow him to get away with this. He binges and then hates himself for his weight gain. He exercises and runs to the point of injuring himself and suffering chronic pain. He has temper tantrums that alienate his wife and that cause him to feel intense shame and remorse for the effect his yelling and screaming are having on his children. His wife puts up with all this as a way of expiating her own guilt for enjoying an opulent life style far exceeding that of her parents and siblings, as well as for the crime of hating her narcissistic and devaluing father.

Mrs. C is the middle child of three children of a narcissistic, cold, and bitter mother who was in constant marital conflict with her husband, who, though successful in his career and much loved by his employees and friends, was withdrawn from the family and ended up drinking himself to death at a relatively early age. Mrs. C early on became involved in activities outside her unhappy home and left it as early as she could. Successful in her studies, she married and, together with her husband, established a business that quickly became extremely successful. She entered analysis because of growing conflict with her husband, whom she had come to envy and hate for the recognition she felt he unfairly garnered in connection with the business which she felt she had done more than he had to build. It became clear that Mrs. C equated her husband with her mother—in fact, equated the whole world with the mother from whom she longed for warmth and appreciation but, instead, seemed to receive only cold indifference and constant unfair demands. Mrs. C reacted to all this with bitter rages, especially on weekends,

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which turned her family life into something resembling that of her parents. In this way, and through her excessive drinking and various professional indiscretions, Mrs. C chronically punished herself for her unconscious hatred of her mother and for her oral envy, greed, and narcissism.

A good deal of the aggression we see in long-term relationships involves the activity of the punitive, at times sadistic, superego and of defences against the pain and self-torment it inflicts on the subject. A common defence against the punitive superego involves identifying with it and directing its aggression away from the self onto others, such as one's spouse or children. Such people have what Heinrick Racker called a “mania for reproaching.” They often form relationships with people who have what might be called a mania for being reproached—that is, who cope with their own sadistic superegos by submitting masochistically instead of identifying and projecting or displacing blame. Three clinical illustrations of such sadomasochistic dynamics in long-term relationships have been given, but nothing can equal their depiction by Edward Albee in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in the memorable film version of the play.

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